Various definitions of epidemiology are discussed here

1. INFECTIOUS DISEASE
EPIDEMIOLOGY

2. INFECTION
• Entry and development or multiplication of an infectious
agent in the body of man or animals
• Does not always cause illness

3. colonization subclinical
latent
Clinical infection
Levels of infection

4. CONTAMINATION
• The presence of an infectious agent on a body surface
• Contamination on a body surface does not imply a
carrier state
• Pollution : the presence of offensive, but not necessarily
infectious matter in the environment

5. The lodgement, development and reproduction of
arthropods on the surface of the body or in the
clothing
INFESTATION

6. HOST
• A person or other animal, that affords lodgement to an
infectious agent under natural conditions
• Obligate host : the only host
• Eg: Man in measles & typhoid fever

7. HOST
• Primary or definitive host: hosts in which the parasite
attains maturity or passes its sexual stage
• Secondary or intermediate hosts: the parasite is in a
larval or asexual state
• Transport host is a carrier in which the organism
remains alive but does not undergo development

8. INFECTIOUS DISEASE
A clinically manifest disease of man or animals
resulting from an infection

9. CONTAGIOUS DISEASE

10. COMMUNICABLE DISEASE
An illness due to a specific infectious agent
or its toxic products capable of being directly or indirectly
transmitted from man to man, animal to animal, or from the
environment to man or animal
Eg: Varicella, Polio

11. unusual
excess of expected
occurrence
> 2 SE

12. Endemic
• The constant presence of a disease or infectious agent
within a given geographic area or population group
without importation from outside
• When conditions are favourable may burst into an
epidemic
• Eg:Hepatitis A,Typhoid fever,Leptospirosis,Common
cold

14. • Hyperendemic: the disease is constantly present at a
high incidence and/or prevalence rate and affects all age
groups equally
• Holoendemic: a high level of infection beginning early
in life and affecting most of the child population,
leading to a state of equilibrium such that the adult
population shows evidence of the disease much less
commonly than do the children
Eg: Malaria

16. SPORADIC
• Scattered about
• The cases occur irregularly haphazardly from time to
time, and generally infrequently
• May be the starting point of an epidemic
• Eg: Polio, Tetanus, Herpes zoster, Meningococcal
meningitis
• Many Zoonotic diseases are characterised by sporadic
transmission to man

17. PANDEMIC
• An epidemic usually affecting a large proportion of the
population
• Eg: Influenza pandemics of 1918 and 1957,
• Cholera El Tor in 1962
• Acute haemorrhagic conjunctivitis in 1971 and 1981

19. EXOTIC
• Diseases which are imported into a country in which
they do not otherwise occur
• Rabies in UK
• Epidemic Polyarthritis in
– visitors to Fizi,
– due to ross river virus

20. ZOONOSES

21. • Anthropozoonoses : infections transmitted to man from
vertebrate animals,
Eg: Rabies, Plague, Hydatid disease, Anthrax
• Zooanthroponoses :infections transmitted from man to
vertebrate animals.
Eg: Human Tuberculosis in cattle
• Amphixenoses :infections maintained in both man and
lower vertebrate animals that may be transmitted in
either direction
Eg: T.Cruzi, S.Joponicum

22. • EPIZOOTIC: An outbreak
(epidemic) of disease in an animal
population
Eg: Anthrax, Brucellosis, Rabies,
Influenza, Q fever
• EPORNITHIC: An outbreak
(epidemic) of disease in a bird
population
• ENZOOTIC: An endemic
occurring in animals
Eg: Anthrax, Rabies, Brucellosis,
Bovine tuberculosis,

23. NOSOCOMIAL INFECTION
• An infection originating in a patient while in a hospital
or other health care facility
• Not present or incubating at the time of admission
• Not the residual of an infection acquired during a
previous admission
• Includes infections acquired in the hospital but
appearing after discharge
• Eg: Surgical wounds, Hepatitis B and Urinary tract
infections.

25. OPPURTUNISTIC INFECTION
• Infection by an organism that takes the opportunity
provided by a defect in host defence to infect the host
and hence cause disease
• Herpes simplex, Cytomegalouirus, Toxoplasma,
M.Tuberculosis, M.Avium intracellulare, Pneumocystis

26. IATROGENIC (PHYSICIAN INDUCED)
DISEASE
Any untoward or adverse
consequence of a preventive, diagnostic or
therapeutic regimen or procedure, that cause
impairment, handicap, disability or death
resulting from a physician's professional
activity or from the professional activity of
other health professionals

27. • Disease may be serious enough to prolong the hospital
stay, require special treatment or actually threaten life
• Reactions to penicillin,
• childhood leukaemia due to prenatal x-rays,
• hepatitis B following blood transfusion
• These are all preventable

28. SURVEILLANCE

29. ERADlCATlON
• Termination of all transmission of infection by
extermination of the infectious agent through
surveillance and containment
• Absolute process, an "all or none" phenomenon
• Eg: Smallpox
• Diseases which are amenable to eradication are measles,
diphtheria, polio and guinea worm